How crestfallen he looked, in the national interest of course, as he was leaving Parliament in the company of his deputy leader after that vote of no confidence failed last Thursday. This is not the first vote of no confidence tabled by the Labour Party that has been lost under the leadership of Joseph Muscat; nor is it likely to be the last, but it should give him pause unless he wishes to make of Parliament a laughing stock, which I suspect he doesand then point an accusing finger ingovernment’s direction.

Franco Debono’s beef with the Prime Minister provided the coat-tails on which Joseph Muscat has been surfing for the past four weeks in an inglorious bid

But what a week that was. You would have thought that on an issue of such critical importance, that is, the downfall of this government, all the King’s horses and all the King’s men would have contributed to an outcome each member of the opposition yearned for; but no; the King’s yearning was so intense he took over his party’s entire speaking time and thus, were the motion carried, a celebratory party would have taken place and the anointed one marked with the Divine Right of Leadership.

No doubt that was the thinking behind it all; single-handedly Muscat should take on all the government’s horses, never mind its men, and what a famous victory that would have been. Pity it did not work out quitethat way.

In the land of sanity reason prevails; in the land of common sense it should have dawned on the Leader of the Opposition that it was too simplistic to hitch a ride on Franco Debono’s coat-tails and hope to win a vote of no confidence perched in that ludicrous position; to think, moreover, that he could call such a vote without giving the House one reason as to why he was doing so, pointing to the stinking financial mess the country is in, the alarming failure of the tourism sector, the gross inability of the government to attract foreign and local investment, the soaring rate of unemployment, the shrinkage in economic growth, the record rate of inflation, the dismal performance turned in by Malta International Airport and other more across the board.

Truth is Muscat has shot himself in the foot and if it is democratic deficits he wishes to play in the Theatre of the Absurd that politics sometimes is, why not present an initial draft – which he did – and limit debating time to three hours? What urgency was there in the real world to justify a letter to the Speaker to recall Parliament from its Christmas break so that the House could save Malta from itself? Too much foot-shooting is not good for anybody; for a man in a hurry it can prove disastrous.

This piece cannot end without a reference to that buzzword of the past few weeks – instability. It has been bandied about something ‘horrible and yet, up to the start of last month, the word was scarcely mooted, if at all. Debono’s beef with the Prime Minister provided the coat-tails on which Muscat has been surfing for the past four weeks in an inglorious bid. He may yet regret his hasty bid for power.

A war on the Church?

Chesterton once wrote that the United States of America was the only nation on earth founded on a creed; hence the fierce regard in which religious freedom is held by Christians in that country.

Speaking earlier this month to American bishops from Baltimore, Washington and the archdiocese for the military services during their ad limina visit, Pope Benedict reminded them of the “consensus” that exists “about the conditions for human flourishing in America”, a consensus “grounded in a worldview shaped not only by faith but a commitment to certain ethical principles deriving from nature and nature’s God”.

“Today that consensus has eroded significantly in the face of powerful new cultural currents which are not only directly opposed to core moral teachings of the Judeo-Christian tradition, but increasingly hostile to Christianity as such”. The threats to religious freedom were not only real in the US; they were being carried out.

An example of this hostility, the Pope said, was the ongoing attempt to refuse Christianity its rightful place in the public square through a distorted definition of the “legitimate separation of Church and state”, which cannot, must not, be understood to mean that the Church must be silent on certain issues.

The day after Pope Benedict’s address, Barack Obama’s administration, specifically, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), “mandated religious institutions to comply with healthcare rules profoundly against their fundamental moral beliefs”.

And gave them 12 months in which to sort themselves out; which they will; which they will and it is to be expected that the normative voice will be that of the splendidly outspoken Archbishop Timothy Dolan. He has already spoken out and his voice came over loud and strong – against, with all our strength, against.

So did that of the liberal Fr John Jenkins, who invited the outrageously pro-abortion President to Notre Dame and received much flak for doing so. On this matter he has publicly disapproved of the DHHS’s instruction and called it “an unnecessary government intervention that placed organisations such as his in ‘an untenable position’”. Were Notre Dame to drop coverage (providing birth control and sterilisation, among other things) for its 5,229 employees the penalty inflicted by the HHS penalty would amount to $10 million a year.

What struck millions of Catholics – the majority of these voted for Obama in 2008 – has not been merely the timing of DHHS’s assault on the primacy of conscience but its indifference to the effect this assault will have on so-called liberal Catholics. A report I have just read quotes Catholic Vice-President Joe Biden as threatening, famously or infamously to “shove my rosary beads” down the throat of anybody who suggested that his party’s positions on social issue put it at odds with people of faith. Right, then

Money talks...

...And Mitt Romney has plenty of it. Mindful of the defeat he suffered at the hands of Newt Gingrich in South Carolina,Romney indulged in a splurge of what was described as a “wall-to-wall” negative advertising campaign against Gingrich leaving little space for his opponents to make any effective counter-attack.

The latter’s budget, I understand, was no larger than Romney’s salary on a bad month; it explains how, at the beginning of last week, his eight per cent lead was demolished by that ad campaign and, 24 hours later, turned into a six per cent lead for the man who removed his mitts and showed Mitt’s bare knuckles on a good day. The name of the game is volatility.

So Gingrich did what he thought best and did what he is best at: and was best: he took on Obama, which is a line of attack American conservatives enjoy. Another name of the game is resonance.